happiness

Sing a Song of Age with Me

lillian32 Comments

I am eight syllables of rhyme.
A wannabe decimista
addicted to my barista,
tap dancing through life double-time.
Old age is not a paradigm.
I wore polka-dot underwear
during yesterday’s love affair
with life, eating savory tarts,
cotton candy and red hot hearts.
Life’s too fun for a rocking chair.

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Gayle hosts dVerse today and asks us to write a Decima: 10 liner, 8 syllables per line, ABBAACCDDC rhyme scheme. Popular in Puerto Rico, many times decimas are created and sung on the spot in competitions. Think duelling banjoes only with words! Performers are called decimistas. Humorous decimas usually satirize an individual’s weakness or something silly they did. Photo: me a number of years ago at the Boston Pops 4th of July concert.  I do love life! 🙂 Also used for NaPoWriMo Day 21.

Snippets of High School French

lillian7 Comments

Patisseries,
le chocolat and savory too.
Do not knead de pain,
only le fruit
from le menu please.
Modeste? Ordinaire?
Moi?
I choose le joi de vivre.
Life can be
as the saying goes
a piece of cake
or, in my way of thinking,
le gateau and
the entire boulange!

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A “Kenning” poem written for NaPoWriMo Day 20. A kenning is a riddle-like metaphor….a circumlocution. In this case — life is like a boulanger (a bakery) — step right up and choose! 🙂 I last took French in 1965 — intersting the phrases I remember. And for those of you who are Christmas lovers, I can still sing the first verse of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer in French. Ah, my teacher would be proud 🙂  Photo credit: Jendo Reversal

Notes from a Musical Interlude Fantasia 2

lillian40 Comments

It was the big band era, lots of brass
Billy whalin’ on the drums
while Johnny waited for his riff
makin’ the keyboard swing.

And me, standin’ on the riser
my long arms waitin’ too.
“Wing span of a hawk” mama said,
just the ticket for a trombone man.

Yeah, I could slide that brass
hear the notes clear and smooth
no strings or keys,
just that long sleek glide.

And Mabel at the mic,
feathers clipped in henna dyed hair
sultry voice in the sweet spots
hips, always swingin’ to the beat.

Never made it big like the Duke
but we had our gigs.
A glass of gin between sets
and smoke swirlin’ round our heads.

They’re all gone now.
Pawned my ‘bone long time ago.
But sometimes, while I’m sittin’ here
I can put myself there.

I close my eyes and start to sway
Mabel leanin’ real close like she did.
I wheel this chair around a bit
and I can feel us back there again,
swingin’ to that big band sound.

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Rescored for dVerse Poetics Fantasia. This was originally posted in 2015, inspired by Carl Sandburg’s Jazz Fantasia. I’ve reworked it a bit — thinking it a good one for today’s prompt. I am hosting dVerse today — wonderful experience. In the words of Carl Sandburg, Go to it oh jazzmen!

What’s in Your Book Spines?

lillian11 Comments

i
The Happiness Project
Swing Swagger Drape
A Hundred Daffodils

ii
You’re Wearing That?
The Audacity of Hope

iii
Plain and Simple:
If I Had My Life To Live Over
I Would Pick More Daisies
Off Camera

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NaPoWriMo Day 10: My suggested prompt was used for everyone today! Stack ’em up and write  Book Spine Poetry, hopefully from books on your book shelves.
My three poems include titles from: Gretchen Rubins’s The Happiness Project, Jane Slicer-Smith’s knitting pattern book Swing Swagger Drape, Jane Kenyon’s White Daffodils; You’re Wearing That? by Deborah Tannen and Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope; and the third one includes Sue Bender’s Plain and Simple, If I Had My Life to Live Over I Would Pick More Daisies edited by Sandra Haldeman Martz, and Ted Koppel’s Off Camera.  Happy Sunday!

Paging Vincent Van Gogh

lillian10 Comments

Hybrid sunflowers
big time flower power.
Fast growing giant Kong,
Bashful Lemon Queen,
bold eye catching.
Ms. Mars, uncommonly gorgeous.
Elf, compact charmer
and Little Becka too.
Madly floriferous Candy,
Strawberry Blonde, Frilly
and Crimson Blaze,
dazzle with sensuous high definition.
Sunny Bunch, Honey Bears
precious beauties,
incredible lovable faces.
All flummoxed on your easel,
sowed one quarter inch deep
in oil, denied full sun,
borders and beds.
Your fame, their demise.

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Written for Day 6 NaPoWriMo, using day five’s prompt: Create a poem using words from a seed catalogue. This is from Burpee’s 2016 catalogue, pages for sunflowers. All words, including title, are exactly as written in Burpee’s except for those italicized. Kong, Bashful, Lemon Queen, Ms. Mars, Elf, Little Becka, Candy, Strawberry Blonde, Frilly, Crimson Blaze, Sunny Bunch, and Honey Bears are all hybrid sunflower varieties. I do love the Found Poetry genre. Photo: from beautiful Cape Cod’s Provincetown, several years ago.